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Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Letters to Nana

Today as I was working on cleaning out Nana's house (it seems like a never-ending process), I found two letters, one each from Dave and me, she'd saved for almost 30 years.

First mine. To set it up, I typed it in 1985, when I was a high shool freshman. I took typing as an elective my first semester and it looks like I typed it at school.

November 3, 1985

Dear Nana,

How are you? I'm fine. School is a lot of fun! I really like it. My classes are pretty interesting and my teachers aren't bad either. My favorite classes are French 1 and Geometry Fast. I'm getting an A in French and a B in Geometry, but it's 2% points from an A. I was pretty happy about the rest of my grades too. They got me on thehonor roll.

David's were just as good as mine, if not better. He made the honor roll too. He got straight B's, which is about what I got my first nine weeks in junior high. He was pretty proud. Soccer is over for the fall season. Now he's playing basketball. He's pretty good at it too. Winter soccer starts sometime next month. He's looking forward to it.

Mom starts work tomorrow, and is looking forward to it, I think. I know she is nervous, but she will do fine. I know I'm looking forward to it. Sometimes we get on each others nerves. I know she is going to do a great job in commercial real estate. I'm really proud of my mom, she always does a great job in whatever she tries to do. It isn't whether or not people like what she does, it's whether or not she keeps trying until someone realizes that she has good ideas. My mom is not a quitter. She keeps working hard for what she believes in. I'm very proud of her!

Marching band is now over for the fall season. It's very cold and no one likes marching in the cold. At our last competition, we received 4th place for marching and music out of 11 bands that were there. We got 1st place out of 180 marching units for festival spirit, which we didn't even work on. It was a fall festival for the town of Sycamore, IL. We won because of our wonderful use of colors. Our school colors are brown and orange, so we all had on brown and orange and had lots of festival spirit!

Love,

Jessica

Obviously, then, like now, I wasn't afraid to say exactly what I was thinking.

David's letter was written 11 years later and was a postcard from Hawaii. If I remember correctly, this was when he was living in San Francisco and he and his roommates flew to Hawaii for a last-minute getaway. My favorite part is that rather than addressing it "Mrs. Frances Paulk" at her post office box, he simply addressed it "Nana" at her PO box.

Nana,

I knew I got a postcard for you. I cleaned my room today and found it. I'm sorry I didn't send it from Hawaii. I went to this spot. The picture doesn't do it justice. And it's too bad you can't see the trail that takes you out to this point. That was just as amazing as the point. It was very narrow and surrounded by a thick rainforest.

I love you Nana.

David

She didn't save all the letters we sent, so I guess these especially touchedher. I know they touched me reading them today.

About Little Merry Sunshine

A native of Chicago's Northwest Suburbs and resident of the North Shore, Jessica Gardner is passionately opinionated about everything (and we mean EVERYTHING) including local, national, and international politics, sports, news, and martinis, to name a few. The eternal optimist with moments of confusion (she’s blonde after all), Jessica’s musings can be found on her blog, Little Merry Sunshine. When not working (and as an Alumni Relations Manager and business owner, Jessica is almost always working), she volunteers, debates politics, attends wine tastings, cooks, reads, watches The West Wing DVDs, cheers for the Cubs, and plans Ravinia outings and other gatherings for her friends. In spite of her love of all things Chicago – sports, pizza, the lake, etc. – Jessica lives for her time away from it all (her laptop, cell phone, tv, social media, etc.) in Northern Michigan and loves country music, which her friends pretend to not know about.